1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an image-based hand detection apparatus and method and, more particularly, to a hand detection apparatus and method, which detect hands based on images in Human Computer Interaction (HCI) technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
In Human Computer Interaction (HCI) or Human Robot Interaction (HRI) technology, the detection of areas of a user exhibiting a relatively high detection rate based on images is face detection based on facial areas. The reason for this is that features points such as the eyes, nose, and mouth are present on a human face.
However, in omega detection, body detection, hand detection, etc. which have become issues in user interface methods, any background may appear behind a subject unlike in face detection, and various shapes of the subject are assumed, so that the rate of success in detection is low and the probability of erroneous detection is high.
To date, methods, such as the detection of skin color, the detection of motions, and the attachment of a marker, have been mainly used to detect hands, but products that use a remote control equipped with an acceleration sensor are mainly being utilized at present due to problems such as lighting, a moving background, the inconvenience of wearing a maker, and a low detection rate.
Generally, since a hand is composed of several tens of joints, the shape of the hand may assume various shapes even if the shape of the hand obtained when the hand is rotated around a direction perpendicular to a camera as the direction of a shaft is excluded, and thus it is not easy to apply the shapes of the hand to a classifier based on feature points. Therefore, there have been used a method of removing a background using color information, distance information or the like, and thereafter finally determining the shape of the hand by applying an Adaboost algorithm or by exploiting edge information or the like. However, even this method is disadvantageous in that it is not easy to exhibit a reliable detection rate because it is difficult to exclude the influence of lighting and remove a background appearing between the fingers.